Not eating makes it harder to lose weight: The eating method and rhythm of the nine-course diet.

(iii) You can't lose weight if you don't eat.

Dieting can harm your health

People who are determined to lose weight always want to lose weight as quickly as possible, so they try various methods such as dieting, exercise, and eating low-calorie foods.

During weight loss, you need three times more vitamins than usual. However, using this method alone will not eliminate fat. Instead, it deprives you of the raw materials to build blood and muscle, seriously affecting your health.

Excessive dieting not only offers no benefits but can also cause menstrual irregularities or anorexia in women. Even if it doesn't get that serious, it will at least lead to a decline in physical strength and energy, making it impossible to live a healthy life as before. Moreover, the suppression of not eating is a significant stressor, causing restlessness and anxiety.

On the other hand, people who overeat are likely to be picky eaters, only eating the foods they like, which leads to nutritional imbalances. Even if they don't gain weight, long-term picky eating can cause "abnormal taste".

A meal consisting of nine dishes, none of which can be omitted.

Every meal must include all nine categories of dishes: meat, fish, shellfish, seaweed, beans, eggs, vegetables, dairy products, and oils; none of them should be omitted.

In order to ensure normal metabolism, it is very important to provide the body with sufficient nutrition. Therefore, it is essential to "prepare a complete diet of 9 dishes" to provide the body with the necessary nutrients.

Thinking that "it's okay to miss one or two nutrients occasionally..." is not a good approach. You must understand that missing one or two nutrients will result in incomplete cell regeneration, which is the cause of cell failure. Therefore, you should diligently follow the method of ensuring that each meal contains all nine essential nutrients.

Weight loss results vary greatly

Normally, you should have lost about 6 kilograms in four weeks, but in the fifth week you only lost 300 grams.

The reason might be: "I met up with some good friends last Sunday. It had been a long time since we'd seen each other, so it was a rare treat! We had a great time eating at a restaurant a few times. I figured it had only been a few days! And I didn't eat any starchy foods, so it should be fine."

Others, thinking they're being clever, believe that if they've already lost a lot of weight by eating this way, then stopping eating will make them lose even more. So they abandon their original weight loss plan and start dieting. The result? Not only do they not lose weight, but they actually gain weight. This isn't surprising. You must make sure you're full and get enough nutrition before you can lose weight.

Therefore, the benefits of the 9-vegetable diet cannot be ignored. For your health and to successfully achieve your weight loss goals, remember to include all nine essential nutrients, such as meat, fish, and shellfish.

(iv) Tips for preparing a 9-dish meal

Preparing nine nutritious dishes doesn't necessarily require serving them all at once; that's practically impossible. However, with a little more time, you can get all the necessary nutrients from just a few dishes.

For example:

△ Make soup with dried small fish, and add some green kelp, clam meat, etc. In this way, a soup contains four kinds of nutrients: fish, seaweed, shellfish, and beans.

△ Lightly toast the hamburger with cheese, add some vegetables, and then spread with salad dressing. Wouldn't that give you five kinds of nutrients: meat, dairy, vegetables, eggs, and fats?

△ Pickled shellfish, green kelp, angelica root, dried small fish, etc., and served with miso soup and cold white fish and peanut salad, make up five nutritious dishes.

With a little ingenuity and the addition of vegetables, you can easily prepare a meal with nine nutritious dishes.

Avoid eating pre-prepared foods. These foods often contain too much seasoning, salt, and sugar, which can negatively impact your health.

(V) How to eat a 9-dish meal

The portions should be balanced.

The nine-vegetable diet does not specify how much of each vegetable should be eaten, and in fact it is difficult to determine the amount, because only your own body knows what nutrients it needs and how much it needs.

Therefore, it's best to have all nine essential nutrients on hand. Unless you have a picky diet, your body will naturally adjust the food you eat and how much you eat based on its needs.

In addition, if the time between two meals is less than 6 hours, you should also consider whether your eating habits and the food you eat "provide your body with the nutrients it needs".

Of course, we do not deny that it is not easy to control our intake of balanced nutrition. However, we can keep in mind: "If you ate too much meat at the last meal, eat more fish at this meal." In addition, it is best to consume more than half of your total food intake as vegetables.

Chewing slowly makes you feel fuller

The Wada diet does not restrict your food intake. As long as you consume enough of the nine nutrients-meat, fish, shellfish, seaweed, beans, eggs, vegetables, dairy products, and oils-and chew slowly while eating, you can maintain a beautiful figure even if you eat a full meal.

The most important thing is to chew your food thoroughly to ensure it is fully absorbed. The ideal mealtime is 40-60 minutes; take your time and enjoy your food in a relaxed manner.

For a long time, we've believed that once we're at the table, we should finish our meals quickly, but that's not the right approach. Maintaining a relaxed and pleasant mood is essential for a comfortable and enjoyable meal. However, in today's fast-paced society, having such a relaxed dining experience seems like a luxury.

It has been observed that many obese people do not chew their food properly and wolf it down. This shows that "eating fast" means "eating a lot," which is how obesity is caused.

For a person to feel full, blood sugar levels must first rise to send a satiety signal to the brain, thus reducing the desire to eat. However, it takes time for food to be converted into blood sugar.

If you wolf down a lot of food, and the food doesn't have time to generate blood sugar to send signals to the brain, by the time your brain receives the signal, you've already eaten too much, and your stomach has expanded. At this point, you'll definitely feel uncomfortable due to being too full and bloated. Many people have probably experienced this.

Therefore, chewing each bite of food slowly allows the food entering the stomach to coordinate with the blood sugar levels sensed by the brain, naturally preventing overeating and reducing the burden on the stomach, ensuring that every nutrient consumed is fully absorbed.

For people suffering from gastric dilatation, it is best to advise them to reduce their usual food intake by half, savor each bite, and chew it thoroughly. This will lengthen the mealtime, reduce the amount of food consumed, and still allow them to feel full.

When you chew each bite of food thoroughly, you stimulate your stomach to secrete appropriate digestive juices. For example, after eating meat, the stomach secretes protein-digesting enzymes, and the meat is completely digested and absorbed. Chewing food slowly and thoroughly in your mouth is like signaling to your digestive system to prepare to receive food.

In addition, saliva can secrete stimulating hormones needed to maintain youth. Start learning to chew thoroughly now! Before putting food in your mouth, put down your chopsticks and chew it 50 times; this is a basic requirement. Also, pay attention to the following three points:

First, the seasoning of food should be light, and spicy spices should be avoided.

Second, consume plenty of vegetables, ideally making up half of your diet.

Third, even if there is leftover food after you have eaten your fill, do not force yourself to eat more.

Please remember these three points.

Seasoning and amount of seasoning

When cooking, try to keep the seasoning light. Eating too much rich food naturally leads to overeating, and rice is prohibited in the nine-dish diet. Furthermore, excessive salt intake easily causes thirst, leading to large gulps of water, which, as mentioned before, should be avoided. While this dilutes the salt in the body, it also causes water retention, resulting in edema. In addition, excess water reduces the skin's resistance to irritation, making it more prone to rashes.

Excessive salt in the body requires the kidneys to pump in a large amount of blood to regulate its function. This increases the burden on the kidneys and can easily lead to kidney problems. Furthermore, the need to transport a large amount of blood also puts a strain on the heart, potentially causing heart problems or high blood pressure.

The same applies to sugar; consuming too much can disrupt the body's water regulation. The best way to maintain good health is to keep your diet light and bland.

Vinegar is a versatile condiment. It can relieve fatigue, and drinking more vinegar can boost the body's immunity. Furthermore, vinegar can counteract the enzymes that break down vitamin C in cucumbers and carrots. These enzymes have the power to destroy vitamins, and this destructive power far exceeds the loss caused by heating. Adding vinegar to cucumbers and carrots can help prevent the loss of vitamin C.

It's best to use natural seasonings, as refined seasonings often lose their original minerals. Although seasonings are used in very small amounts, they are essential nutrients for the body.

(vi) Ideal dining rhythm

To eliminate fat, eat 6 hours apart from meals.

It's best to wait at least 6 hours after a meal before eating again. During this time, don't eat anything; focus on following your plan and stay physically active-this is very important. Don't think that eating less means you can skip exercise; thinking this way will make it impossible to lose weight successfully.

Food takes 2 to 6 hours to be digested in the stomach, and more than 20 hours to be absorbed. As long as metabolism is normal, all the food we eat will be absorbed and will not accumulate as fat.

If you spend all your time either lying in bed or sitting in front of the TV, in addition to your three meals a day, the food you eat won't have enough time to digest, causing it to accumulate as fat and making you gain weight quickly.

The 6-hour interval is to allow the food in the stomach to be cleared, processed, and converted into energy needed by the body. Strictly following the plan during these 6 hours is precisely for this purpose.

When you first start your bodybuilding and weight loss plan, you might crave food at mealtimes, even though you're not necessarily hungry. This is normal, as established habits are hard to break overnight. You need willpower and perseverance to reject your illusions and remind yourself that you're not hungry and that you're implementing your weight loss plan.

Once you get used to this kind of diet, you may not feel hungry anymore, and it's even normal to eat only one meal a day. This is because the food you eat within 24 hours has been absorbed and the nutrients are supplied to your whole body, so you don't feel hungry or want to eat.

Even so, you don't need to worry. Just eat when you're really hungry; your body will always know when you're hungry before your brain does.

Sleep time is not included. It's often said that "eating and then sleeping easily leads to weight gain." Some people argue, "How can sleep time be included?" If you eat and then sleep, and then eat again, it's equivalent to eating continuously, because digestion and absorption cease during sleep. Even short rests or naps should be deducted from this time; you should wait at least 6 hours between meals before eating another meal.

In principle, you can eat whenever you're hungry.

Some people may calculate the 6-hour interval too precisely and adhere to this rule. A friend told me, "I prepare 9 dishes for breakfast at 6 a.m., lunch at 12 p.m., and dinner at 6 p.m., and I chew each meal slowly and thoroughly, but it doesn't seem to have any effect."

As I've said before, you don't necessarily have to eat three meals a day, but there must be at least a 6-hour interval between meals. You can eat whenever you feel hungry, and there's no need to force yourself to eat three meals a day.

The rhythm of a proper diet

The 9-meal diet involves longer intervals between meals and fewer meals, so it's unlikely you'll be able to eat three more meals a day. To begin, you can adopt a 2-1-2-1 rhythm: two meals on the first day, one meal on the second day, two meals on the third day, and so on.

Once you get used to the right diet, your physical condition will improve naturally.

(vii) Menu examples of the 9-dish diet

The 9-dish diet requires preparing 9 different vegetables. This is a diet designed for health and to ensure a balanced intake of nutrients. You can use the same ingredients to cook dishes that better suit your needs, following the menu below.

Menu Examples

[The day before gymnastics]: To prepare your body, eat as lightly as possible.

Case A

△ Grilled eggplant: eggplant (vegetable), cheese (dairy product).

△ Stir-fried tofu: tofu (beans), pork (meat), scallions (vegetables), oil (oil).

△ Clams and Wakame with Vinegar: Clams, wakame (seaweed), and angelica root (vegetable).

△ Nutritious vegetable soup: Quail eggs, celery, dried small fish.

Example B

△ Roasted scallops: scallops, shiitake mushrooms, spinach, milk, mayonnaise, and oil.

△ Stir-fried Chicken with Tofu: Shredded chicken, tofu, scallions, and oil.

△ Boiled seaweed: seaweed, carrot, spinach, dried small fish, and fried tofu.

△ Fresh vegetables

Example C

△ Grilled fish

△ Creamy Cabbage: Cabbage, scallions (vegetables), bacon (meat), milk (dairy products), oil (fats).

△ Leek Balls: Leeks (vegetable), eggs, oil (grease).

△ Cold Scallop and Fish Salad: Scallops, wakame seaweed, scallions, angelica root (vegetable), and bean soup (beans).

Example D

△ Cold Scallop and Broccoli Salad with Cream: Scallops, broccoli, and cream.

△ Beef and Egg Stew: Beef, egg, spinach, oil.

△ Kelp and Soybeans Stew: Soybeans, kelp, carrots, and dried small fish.

Example E

△ Fried Pomfret and Cheese Rolls: Pomfret (fish), cheese (dairy product), eggs, oil, breadcrumbs.

△ Sesame Chicken: Chicken, scallions, sesame seeds.

△ Clam Salad: Carrots, onions, green peppers (vegetables), shelled clam meat, wakame seaweed, salad dressing (oil).

[After gymnastics]: In order to promote cell regeneration and quickly eliminate fatigue.

Case A

△ Fried Peanut Pork: Pork, peanuts, eggs, flour.

△ Sardines Salad: Sardines (fish), lemon, onion, tomato (vegetable), wakame (seaweed).

△ Creamy Clam Omelet: Clams, onions (vegetables), milk (dairy products), cream (oil), flour.

Example B

△ Pan-fried Vienna sausage: Cabbage (vegetable), Vienna sausage (meat), oil.

△ Seafood Omelet: Egg, small shrimp, small fish, squid (fish), tomato, onion (vegetable), oil (grease).

△ Soybean Yeast Milk Salad: Soybeans, wakame seaweed, onion, carrot, yeast, salad dressing, lemon.

Example C

△ Fried meat patties: minced meat, onions (vegetables), milk (dairy products), egg bread.

△ Seaweed Salad: Clams, sardines, shrimp, squid, wakame seaweed, lettuce, onion, carrot, and cabbage.

Example D

△ Stir-fried miso minced meat: minced meat, onion (vegetable), miso (soybean), oil (grease).

△ Fried mackerel: mackerel (fish), oil (grease), flour.

△ Hazai Enoki Mushrooms: Clams, Enoki Mushrooms (vegetables), Wakame Seaweed (seaweed), Lemon.

△ Vegetable soup: Milk (dairy product), carrots, onions, cauliflower, parsley (vegetables).

Example E

△ Cheese and Pork: Pork (meat), cheese (dairy product), eggs, oil, flour.

△ Pickled Pomfret: Pomfret (fish), scallions (vegetables), oil.

△ Tofu with Wakame Seaweed: Wakame seaweed (seaweed), clams (shellfish), and fried tofu (beans).